Fiber-optic-based fluorescence sensing approaches

With respect to fiber-optic-based fluorescence sensing, most of the past approaches have employed either excitation or emission wavelength selectivity (10,11). The other selectivity parameters fluorescence lifetime, steady-state polarization, and rotational diffusion rates have received little if any attention. The acquisition of fluorescence lifetime information via optical fibers has been demonstrated previously (12) however, the time resolution and ability to resolve multiexponential decays of fluorescence were neither demonstrated nor possible with this earlier instrument. Recently, our own group (13,1 ) has developed and described the first fiber-optic-based fluorescence lifetime instrumentation capable of unequivocally determining single, double, and/or triple exponential decays of fluorescence in remotely-located samples. 

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